{wip, im doing some cleaning so pardon my dust lol}
random bits:
[random one-off AU animatic]
Massive Explanation Of My Rottmnt AUs
As you all know I am literally insane, meaning I have several AUs going on at once because I am crazy and this is where my free time goes. Either way, I wanted to make a big post about all these AUs and explain them so that I can start posting more about them.
Warnings will be posted before each explanation so that there are no issues here.
One more note is that most of these AUs I've worked on with my writing partner @korvidq. We do like literally every story together and share ideas back and forth. I do most of the art, however, so that art is owned by me alone until stated otherwise. Anyways, without further ado, here are the AUs.
SCAR AU (also known as the Blind!Leo and Scarred!Donnie au but that name was too long)
WARNINGS: This AU contains child abuse, graphic violence and injuries, panic attacks, meltdowns, and horrible coping mechanisms
Genres: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life
Where to read: It is a series of two one-shots and then a shot collection, all on AO3
About: Very simple premise, in which Splinter is not a good dad and isn't really Splinter because he abuses his kids. It starts with one incident with him clawing Donnie's face and snowballs from there.
Status: Ongoing (updates slow)
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CAROL ADOPTION AU
WARNINGS: This AU contains child abuse, graphic violence and injuries, panic attacks, and meltdowns
Genres: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life
Where to read: It is a series on AO3, it has three parts to it: part 1, part 2, and part 3
About: The first part of the story is a realistic take on if Splinter was a truly horrible parent through the years of the turtle growing up under him. The second part is a one-shot of Donnie and Leo's relationship with one being the protector for the other. The last part is the finale of the AU in which the turtles run away and are found by April and her mother, Carol.
Status: Completed
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DEAD DONATELLO AU
WARNINGS: This AU contains character death, terminal illness, grief and mourning, and horrible coping mechanisms
New Beginnings Without Familiar Faces (Dead Donatello AU)
Chapter Three
Warnings: This AU contains character death, terminal illness, grief and mourning, and horrible coping mechanisms
Mikey didn’t know where he was anymore. Last thing he remembered was crying himself to sleep over an old picture of Donnie he found on his phone, nestled in his bed at the new apartment, completely alone. The next thing he knew, however, he was standing up on a slight hill overlooking a stone path leading up to the shore of a massive lake. The water flora crowded the muddy banks, swaying in the slight breeze. The air smelled clean, devoid of the New York pollution he’d grown accustomed to. The sun was bright and warm, a perfect summer day.
A figure stood by on the muddy bank of the lake, watching the water lap at the edge. His hands in the pockets of his board shorts, soaking in the sun through his purple Hawaiian shirt.
Mikey clambered down the stone path to stand by the figure, a perfect impression of his deceased older brother, a picture of what he was before the cancer tore him apart. He stood shoulder to shoulder with him, watching the banks alongside him.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Donatello commented, breaking through the gentle sounds of the water and the birds chirping. His mask was gone, replaced by his blocky, square glasses. He looked different, his lilac eyes the brightest Mikey had seen in so long. Towards the end, they dulled out so much Mikey forgot what they looked like when they were still healthy.
“Yes,” Mikey croaked, his throat hurting, “it is beautiful.”
“It's a natural lake,” Donnie continued, “I always wanted to see one in person, but I never had the time.” His lips turned down slightly at the mention of his lack of time, before returning to his gentle neutral expression.
Mikey stared at the water, listening to the sounds of his voice.
“I’m sorry I kept it from you for so long.”
That caught Mikey off guard. What he thought was going to be another sob-fest of a dream spent mourning his dead brother turned out to be one trying to comfort him. It must have been his guilt-ridden subconscious trying to make himself feel better.
“I truly thought I had more time,” Donnie went on. “By all means, I would never have lied about that, not to any of you. I was so sure I was going to be around for longer, I would have spent more time with you all if I had thought I was to depart when I did.”
It sounded so much like his brother, he didn’t think his subconscious would be so kind as to gift him such comfort. He couldn’t help but ask, hoping for some kind of answer, “Is it—is it really you-er-your spirit? Or is all of this—” he waved his arm in a wide gesture over Donnie and the lake, “—made up by my mind?”
His brother sighed, shaking his head, “I . . . I don’t know.”
Mikey wanted to start crying again, but he had been so burnt out from doing nothing but cry for the past few days. That cemented it in his mind that the person before him was just a figment of his own imagination.
He hugged him anyway. Imaginary Donnie letting out a startled chirp as Mikey fell into him, wrapping his arms around him. After his confusion settled, he awkwardly hugged Mikey back with a hum. It felt real enough for Mikey, and that made it hurt all the more.
“I’m gonna wake up and you’re going to be dead again,” Mikey mumbled into Donnie’s chest.
“This current setting doesn’t change the fact that I am dead.”
“I don’t want to wake up. Why can’t I stay here with you?”
“Because you are alive, you still have a long, healthy life ahead of you. You still have time, cherish that, for me.” Donnie pulled back from the hug to look him in the eyes. “Promise me you’ll live to the fullest, make every moment count.”
Mikey nodded. “I promise.”
Donnie smiled. “That’s all I could ever want.”
Mikey woke up in a cold sweat in an empty bed. His covers were pushed onto the floor, his phone still clutched to his chest. Upon unlocking it, the picture was still pulled up. He could’ve sworn that was him in his dream, but then he woke up. He shut his phone off, blocking out the picture of him and Donnie a few days before he was gone.
There was light trying to cut through his black-out curtains and sounds coming from down the hall of Draxum making food. Mikey had been asleep for so long he didn’t know which meal it was, and he didn’t quite care as his stomach rumbled.
That promise he had made to himself in his head stuck with him as he climbed out of bed putting on the hoodie Donnie had gotten him as he stumbled out the door and down the hall to the kitchen.
Draxum looked at him momentarily, before returning to the frying pan on the stove. “Good evening, Michelangelo. I’m just finishing up dinner now.”
Another day wasted with sleeping and crying. Did that count as already breaking his promise of making the most of life?
“Where are the others?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes so that Draxum couldn’t comment on how much he looked as though he had been crying.
“They’re out with April, she wanted to wake you up as well, but I told her to let you rest.”
Mikey looked down. “Oh.”
“You have not been sleeping well these past few days, I figured the full period of sleep would do you some good.”
Mikey swiped at his eyes, still groggy from his sleep as well as the lingering after effects of his strange dream. He was awake now, but it was almost as if he could still feel his brother’s arms around him. He took a seat at the table, crossing his arms on the table and resting his chin on them.
Draxum frowned. “I know this hasn’t been easy for anyone. Will you be okay?”
“No,” Mikey admitted, the word muffled by the sleeves of his hoodie, “I miss him.”
Draxum sighed and turned off the stove entirely, pushing the pan aside so that the stir fry he was making wouldn’t burn while it was left unattended. He took a seat beside his step-son. It was quiet once he sat down. He fiddled with the ring around his finger for a moment. They all had suffered so much loss in the past two years.
“I know,” Draxum muttered, “and that’s never going to go away. You will miss him forever . . . but you should also try to learn how to live without him. Your brothers and I don’t want to lose you as well because of this.”
Mikey’s eyes were watering. He thought he wasn’t able to cry anymore after the night he had, yet tear drops still stained the sleeves of his hoodie. “I don’t want to learn to live without him. I just want him back.”
Draxum hummed, leaning in and scooting his chair closer to wrap an arm around Mikey. Mikey leaned into his embrace in return. He gently rubbed his shoulder, offering as much comfort as he could.
The conversation wasn’t able to start back up after that. Draxum couldn’t think of anything more to say and so they sat like that for half an hour before Draxum suggested that he should relax. He told Mikey to get settled on the couch and put on a movie, then he would bring him tea and a blanket.
Mikey soon found himself sitting on the couch in the new apartment's living room, the tea still full and abandoned on the side table as he rewatched Jupiter Jim’s Pluto Vacation IV on repeat. It was his now-dead-brother’s favorite in the whole franchise. It was also the first movie he saw on the shelf. It was already pulled out slightly. He was blankly staring at the screen, wrapped up in a blanket Draxum had put around his shoulders. It was a purple blanket that had come from Donnie’s lab. Everything seemed to remind him of him. It was comforting in a way, though. It smelled like him, it was almost like he was still there with him.
His brothers had come back from going out with April not long ago, but they didn’t stick around after dinner. Leo disappeared into his room and Raph left again, alone this time. He kept doing that, going out late at night and not coming back until early the next morning. April stayed to help Draxum clean up after dinner and was still talking with him in the kitchen as Mikey replayed his movie over and over again.
It was also April’s favorite, but she didn’t come in to share it with Mikey, she remained in the kitchen finding comfort in talking with Draxum before she would have to go back to her parents. They both were still sitting at the kitchen table, drinking late night tea and chatting. Mikey could hear the sounds of their conversation but couldn’t tell what it was about over his movie.
Even then, he turned up the volume of the movie until all he could hear was the sound of Red Fox and Jupiter Jim. He buried his nose into the purple blanket and closed his eyes, listening to the dialogue alone.
“Room for one more?”
Mikey opened his eyes and glanced over at April. She was standing off to the side of the couch, holding her own cup of tea. He shrugged at her, but still scooted over. She sat beside him and pulled her legs up onto the cushion.
Unable to talk, the pair of them simply stared off at the television screen. They could still hear the sounds of Draxum shuffling around in the kitchen as he stacked the leftovers away into the refrigerator.
Eventually, April got up and left without ever saying a word to him. Mikey didn’t blame her, he knew he was being rather unapproachable as of lately. She still muttered a quick goodbye to Draxum as she was going out the door to head upstairs to her parents place. Draxum returned the sentiment.
He then went to meet Mikey in the living room, taking in the sight of his step-son bundled up in the purple blanket staring off more into spare than at the screen. His kid’s eyes were dull and underlined in a deep black and blue. His tea, now cold, still sat on the side table.
“It’s getting late,” Draxum voiced.
Mikey gripped the blanket tighter, tucking his nose further into the soft, worn fabric.
“Don’t stay up too long.”
He grumbled to himself, refusing to look in his step-father’s direction.
“Good night, Michelangelo,” Draxum added and disappeared down the hall to retire to bed. He left the living room lamp on, it was the only light in the entire apartment aside from the slight purplish-blue glow from the nightlights Leo kept on at all times in his own room. From where Mikey was sitting he was in a bubble of light surrounded entirely by darkness.
Mikey reached for the remote on the side table and flipped the TV off. His cup of tea was gone now. Draxum had cleaned it up before heading to bed since it was already cold and basically wasted from Mikey’s neglect of it. The TV shut off and the sound of silence swallowed him up.
He nestled himself further into the blanket. It still smelled of mechanic’s grease and metal.
Dead Purple Flowers Tied Up With Twine (Dead Donatello AU)
Chapter Two
Warnings: This AU contains character death, terminal illness, grief and mourning, and horrible coping mechanisms
Mikey had finally completed what he had been working on for his brother, a mural outside his favorite pizza shop. He took a picture after dark because he knew it would look the best, with the warm lights from the shop illuminating the piece. He spent the extra coin to get all the best shades of purple at the store. It was a perfect piece to his brother. He took a picture of it on his phone, knowing full well Donnie couldn’t leave the lair anymore, and went to show him his work.
He passed Leo on his way to the lab. He was listening to bubblegum pop loudly without headphones as he moved and shuffled supplies around in the med bay. Mikey could tell Leo was obsessing over his textbooks for something he might have missed about Donnie’s illness. He was still dancing around to the beat, flipping between different books and pages.
Mikey kept walking to the far reaches of the lair. Donnie's door didn’t have a lock on it anymore and it opened smoothly, clicking into place. From the doorway he could see him asleep at his desk, laying across scattered papers of scribbled out sketches.
“Don?” He called. No response. “Hey, Donald, I have something to show you.”
He padded over to the desk and nudged at his brother’s side. Donnie didn’t move. He moved to grab his shoulder and shake him awake, but when he fully touched him he was cold. Mikey froze. No, no, no, no—
Mikey let out a blood curdling scream, he was dead, Donnie was dead and he wasn’t supposed to have died yet, he still had time, he had said so, he said he still had weeks left, not days, not hours until his final breath, he had done the calculations, Donnie had—
Mikey was hyperventilating, gasping for breaths he couldn’t catch as he still stood there staring at the body of his brother, who no longer had breath of his own to breathe.
Raph came racing around the corner shouting Mikey’s name, asking him what was wrong and why he was screaming. He couldn’t answer, having collapsed next to Donnie’s chair, holding onto the arm rest and sobbing into his forearms.
Raph felt Donnie’s arm, near his wrist where a pulse should be. Then something shattered inside him. There was nothing. No slight warmth, no sign of a pulse, no sign of life. His brother lay still, his body no longer even moving to breath. He was just still, cold and ridged.
His first reaction was to start crying, then it was to immediately pull himself together again. Raph had to be strong, more than ever, Splinter wasn’t here anymore, so he had to be able to hold the family together, even as he wanted to collapse next to Mikey and cry, and sob, and let it all out. He couldn’t afford to do that, not here, not now.
He tried to pull Mikey away from the chair, but his little brother held strong. He shouldn’t be seeing this. Donnie didn’t look like himself anymore. He was pale, shrunken, and frail, his face gaunt and his eyes unseeing.
“Mikey,” he mumbled, still holding onto his brother’s arm.
Mikey continued to sob, holding onto the chair for all it was worth. He couldn’t let go.
“Mikey, we have to tell Leo.” Raph crouched down, setting a hand on Mikey’s shoulder, his little brother still unwilling to budge from where he was hunched on the floor.
He ended up having to leave Mikey to go grab Leo. Leo looked so happy when Raph ran in, listening to his music and dancing around the med bay.
“Hey, Raph,” Leo chirped, still focused on his work in organizing the bay, “what’s up?”
He couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He didn’t have to say it out loud until now. Raph forced himself to take a deep breath and spit it out. “It’s Donnie, he’s—he had less time than he thought.”
The color drained from Leo’s face in an instant. Leo dropped what he was holding and it shattered at his feet. Then they were racing down the hall, ignoring the glass on the ground in the med bay. Leo was already crying by the time he got to the lab.
“No, no, no, no . . .” Leo sobbed, pacing around Donnie, afraid to move any closer. “He said-he said—”
Raph stood a little away, tears rolling down his cheeks already no matter how he tried to hold them back or desperately wipe them away. He would stay strong, he had to, for Leo, for Mikey . . . for Donnie.
“Raph, he said—” Leo turned to Raph, struggling to breath, his eyes teary, “he—”
“I know, I know,” Raph’s voice cracked, even as he tried to hide it.
Leo finally moved towards Donnie, he did the same as Raph and checked once again for a pulse. When he found nothing, he pulled away instantly. “He’s—”
Mikey was still crumpled on his knees by the chair, his cries having weakened into hiccups and ragged breaths.
Leo crashed into Raph, who held onto him immediately.
They stayed like that for what seemed like forever. Mikey refused to let go of Donnie’s chair, and Raph refused to let go of Leo who still sobbed in his arms. After several moments of just crying, Raph managed to pull Mikey off the chair and give him to Leo, then pushed Leo out the door with him. He closed the door, and faced Donnie’s body. He didn’t know what to do. He was only seventeen, he wasn’t prepared for this, didn't know how to handle it, and Splinter, Dad, he was the one who was supposed to know what to do, but he was gone. Just like Donnie, he was gone, and it was Raph’s job now to handle it, but he was at a loss.
He didn’t want to move Donnie. It felt wrong. So, he stood there for a few minutes, staring at the body of his dead brother, unsure of what to do.
Then he shakily took out his phone and called his step-father. They weren’t entirely close. Their relationship was still strained to say the least. But Draxum would know what to do, could do what he couldn’t. And Draxum deserved to know his kid was gone.
“Hello? Raphael?”
He struggled to speak for a moment. “Can-can you come to the lair? Now? I—”
“Raphael? Are you okay?”
“I-I need you, please. I don’t, I can’t—”
“I am on my way, Raphael.” There was shuffling on the other end of the line. “Are you hurt?”
Raph couldn’t answer. His throat was clogged from all the held-back tears. He struggled to croak out a barely audible, “N-no.”
“I’ll be there in a moment, Raphael. Stay on the line.”
The door slid open again a few minutes later. Leo and Mikey were still on the floor in the hall. The two of them wrapped around each other still sobbing. Draxum stood in the doorway, holding the door open. He took in the sights of the lab and his breath hitched.
Suddenly, Raph wasn’t his main priority anymore, once it became clear to him that Raph wasn’t in danger. And when he saw Donnie . . .
Draxum rushed over to him and nearly broke down himself.
“Donatello?” He croaked, kneeling beside the desk.
Raph couldn’t hold back the flood gate anymore and started sobbing, hugging himself and falling to his knees.
“My son?” Draxum carefully placed a hand on Donnie’s shoulder. He felt how cold he was but didn’t move it. He took in a sharp breath, now understanding the gravity of the situation.
His boy was dead.
He stood up sharply and turned to Raph. “Raph, call April, tell her to get here when she can. She can look after you boys for the time being. I will-I am going to take Donnie.”
“But D—”
“Raph, you have to be the adult for a moment, and I am sorry, but this is—” Draxum paused to swear under his breath. “—this is . . . there is nothing we can do. I have to take him. April will be the adult until I return. You will be the adult until she gets here.”
Raph shuddered, wiping at his face.
“Can you do that? Just for now, be strong a little longer.”
Raph nodded.
“You are so strong, Raphael,” Draxum muttered. “I am going to move your brother. Could you take your brothers into the projector room and wait there, call April to come look after you.”
Raph didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to go wait in another room while his brother was taken away. But he did as he was told, because he didn’t know what else to do. He picked up Mikey and held Leo’s hand, taking them into the projector room. He set Mikey on the couch and wrapped him in a blanket. Leo sat next to him, wrapped in his own blanket.
He got out his phone again and called April.
It was hours spent in the projector room crying with his brothers, and then crying with April. They all huddled together, having moved onto the floor from the couch. Mikey was clinging to Raph's chest, with April and Leo on either side of him.
Draxum came back eventually. It was nearly four in the morning when he returned, and all of them but Raph had fallen asleep, tired from the previous day. He didn’t have his brother with him anymore, Donnie’s body was taken away and he didn’t come back. He wasn’t going to come back. He couldn’t.
Draxum took a seat on the ground next to the pile, leaning against the couch. He seemed tired, letting out a sigh. “You can rest, Raphael, it is late.”
Donnie died a few days ago and it still didn’t feel real. Leo was convinced that it was all still a dream, that he would wake up and his twin would still be there. But yet every morning he continuously awoke to the same grim reality: Donnie was dead, there was no hellish nightmare to awaken from.
No one had gone in the lab since. They couldn’t face that he wasn’t there, it was easier to pretend he was just in his lab as always rather than burned and sitting in a fancy, purple cup in the projector room next to Splinter.
Leo walked by the door everyday, his room was the farthest in the lair next to Donnie’s old room.
Draxum offered that they should come live with him and get out of the sewers. Raph agreed almost instantly to the move, itching to get out of the lair because of how every part of it only stood to remind him of Donnie. Leo and Mikey fought them at every turn. April managed to convince Mikey that they would be closer in the apartment complex.
Leo wasn’t convinced. He wouldn’t let anyone into the lab to pack up Donnie’s things and he refused to pack up his own belongings.
“Leo?” Mikey asked hesitantly, knocking his knuckles against Leo’s arm. “Are you—are you okay?”
Leo was currently on the floor in the projector room staring at Splinter’s old ‘do not touch’ shelf. Donnie and Dad were on that shelf now. At least they were until Raph put them both in a box so he can follow this step-father’s every instruction. Leo was not convinced.
“You seem kinda spacy,” Mikey added, flopping down next to him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“You should be getting your stuff together,” Raph called, peeking into the projector room, carrying a box of his own.
Leo grumbled and pulled Mikey against his side.
Raph rolled his eyes. “Start packin’ up or your stuffs gonna be left behind.”
Leo didn’t answer again. Mikey was starting to think he was being used as an excuse for Leo to not answer their older brother.
“We . . . we're goin’ into his room next,” Raph muttered, “we want to go in together, so pack up your things so we can.”
Leo suddenly pushed Mikey away, and stood up. He stomped past Raph and down the hall. He knew he was being dramatic and stupid, pushing his brothers away after such a horrible loss that was affecting all of them. But he couldn’t help but be upset, blaming everyone and himself for what had happened despite knowing damn well there was nothing anyone could do to stop Donnie’s cancer. But he was the medic, he should have been able to see it, should have known something was wrong before it was too late.
He walked by the lab door, as always. The door was closed, but the lock was still missing. He kept walking to his room. It was only a few steps away from the lab. On some sleepless night, when his twin was still alive, he could hear the sounds of blasting dubstep through his door. He missed it, he missed the dubstep and the screaming and the explosions. The random Donnie check-ins where he would wander into Leo’s room and just lay next to him. The random noises Donnie would make as he watched movies with them or hung out with them in the atrium. Everything, he missed everything. But now everything was gone. There would be no more of those moments.
He carelessly threw his things into boxes and tried not to think about his missing second half. But he kept finding the little gifts Donnie made him. Leo even found the first gift he’d ever gotten, a rock painted a reflective blue from a handicap parking space on the first night Splinter took them out of the lair. Donnie had tripped over it when he first found it and upon picking it up, he had instantly given it to Leo. After every gift he gave out Donnie was always so happy. Leo just wanted to see him be happy again.
In the final week of Leo knowing about his brother’s cancer, and even a little before then, Donnie never looked happy. No happy little noises or hand movements, he only held a depressed expression as he tried to keep himself standing with his staff. The closest he could get were forced grimaces, and those looked just as miserable.
Leo tossed the nightlight Donnie gave him into his personal possessions box. The box that could never get lost under any circumstances. The box he would watch from here to Draxum’s apartment. Donnie made it for him when they were six, because Leo was scared of the dark, and truth be told, he still can’t sleep at night without it. Whether he was scared of the dark or needed his brother close, he didn’t know. What mattered is that he knew he needed it desperately.
He finished packing up his things. His room was completely empty now. All his Jupiter Jim posters and figurines cleaned from the walls and shelves. He taped up the last box and stacked them together.
Mikey was in the doorway when he turned back around.
Leo stood there next to his stacks of boxes, looking his little brother up and down. He still didn’t want to say a word, even though he knew none of this was Mikey’s fault.
“Raph’s waiting for us at his door,” Mikey said, looking out of place standing at Leo’s doorway. He was wearing a paint-stained black hoodie that was way too large for him. It was another one of Donnie’s gifts. He had gotten it for Mikey when he realized the box turtle had an affinity for street art. That was a year ago, and Mikey continued to paint the city.
Leo narrowed his eyes, but walked past Mikey regardless. He tried to ignore his little brother’s heartbroken gaze on the back of his head.
Raph didn’t say anything upon seeing Leo and Mikey in the hall, he just put a hand on the door handle. But as soon as he did, Leo grabbed his wrist.
“Leo,” Raph warned.
Leo glared back.
“We have to take his stuff to the new apartment, or would you rather we left everythin’ he ever worked on in the sewers to rot and wash away in the next overflow?”
Grief affects everyone differently. So, when Leo got quiet and Raph got angry, Mikey didn’t judge, but fighting over who got to go into their dead brother’s room was not something Mikey was going to stand by for.
“Enough,” Mikey snapped, knocking Leo’s hand off of Raph. He pushed past his older brothers and opened the lab door. It creaked open slowly to reveal the mostly-spotless, aside from the dust that had gathered in the few days after his death, lab that Donnie had left. It was unusual to see it in such a state, lacking its controlled chaos of projects and blueprints littered about. It looked hollow and no longer had the life it once held.
Raph brought in the boxes and went straight to packing everything away, starting with Donnie’s clothes. Purple hoodie, tank tops, even a suit or two. Raph was focused, barely looking through what he was shoving into the boxes.
Mikey wandered to the bulletin boards lining the back wall. It was all of his art, pinned up on the walls. Next to the table beneath the boards, tucked into a corner was a small box. Mikey knelt down and pulled it from its hiding spot. It was labeled: “for my family.”
“Guys?” Mikey called to the rest of the room.
Raph looked up. “Stop messin’ around,” he scolded, “close the box and tape it shut.”
Mikey looked back at the box addressed for them. There were three things inside that Mikey didn’t quite get to see before he closed the box’s flaps and taped it shut.
He got back up and pulled another box closer, slowly pulling down old artwork and tossing it into the boxes along with everything from the tables lining the back wall.
Leo went straight for the curtain in the far corner of the room and pulled it back. His bed was ruffled and messy from the last night Donnie had ever slept in it. The pillowcase was stained a slight brownish color that Leo knew well as dried blood. He would have to throw the pillow away, but he pulled Donnie’s blankets and sheets off the bed and into a box.
The nightstand had a matching nightlight, but it was glowing a faded purple light, the batteries nearly dead from having been on for days. Next to the light was a family picture in a wooden purple frame and a fold up drawing Mikey had done of all of them. The drawing was chicken scratch compared to what Mikey could do now, the figures were nothing but colored blobs. The bottom corner of the paper read: “Michelangelo, Age 5.”
Leo put the picture into his medic bag rather than into one of the boxes. He put the picture frame into a box but also kept the matching nightlight.
He looked through Donnie’s drawers and found some fidgets, a tablet, and a large, almost empty bottle of advil. He put all of it into the box and taped it shut.
When he stepped back out of the curtain, Mikey and Raph were pulling apart Donnie’s computer setup. Raph was packing it into the boxes while Mikey wrote down instructions on how to set it back up in case they would ever need to. Leo knew that the computer was going to rot in a box in Draxum’s closet.
Even the lab was empty now. The whole lair was, from tchotchkes to furniture, everything was packed away to either be thrown out or moved into the apartment. They were moving everything from his old home.
Leo didn’t want to leave the lair. It was his home in a way that Draxum’s new apartment would never be. Because Draxum’s new apartment didn’t have Donnie. And like so many other things now, it never would.
The boxes were moved into the apartment and now everyone was doing a final sweep of the lair for things they might have missed.
Leo stood in the empty lab, toying with the nightlight he had taken from Donnie’s nightstand. The light was still going strong, built as tough as his brother used to be. While messing with it in his bag, however, he clicked something.
At first, he thought he had broken it. He pulled it out in a panic, the soft purple light washing over his face in the darkened, empty lab. It didn’t look broken. Then it started playing a recording.
“Leo, shh, I am recording the song,” a squeaky voice buzzed from the nightlight’s speaker.
“But I wanna help sing it with you,” a second voice piped in.
“Sigh. Fine, you can sing the song with me. There are no real lyrics anyway so it's impossible for you to screw this up.”
“Yay! Thank you, Dee.”
“Okay, let me play the music, start on my cue.”
The music, a soft piano that seemed to be coming from another device and was thus extra grainy. Then the two high-pitched voices started to “la, la, la,” along with the music. It sounded good for a moment, the sound of two children singing a lullaby, until one of the voices dissolved into laughter.
“Lee!” the voice shrieked, “S-stop!” Whoever the voice belonged too kept laughing and giggling, fighting to get words out.
The other voice joined in laughing too. Both of them ended up laughing their little hearts out until the audio cut out.
It was the lullabye Donnie wanted to record when he made the nightlights. He was going to record it for the both of them, but after his own fell to laughter and tickle fights, he never got around to recording the song for Leo’s light.
A drop of water splattered onto his knuckle. His fingers brushed against his cheeks and came back damp with tears. He messily wiped the rest of his tears away, turned the nightlight off, and shoved it back into his bag.
Leo left the lab, and left the lair, leaving his home.
Soup's Lullaby - one off au in which Mikey is raised by human Meat Sweats, idk man. His name is Soup in this AU btw. Originally going to be longer, etc. etc. but I’m too scramble-brained for that
This animatic was finished forever ago, I just never thought to share it until a bit about the AU was out.
Warnings: This AU contains character death, terminal illness, grief and mourning, and horrible coping mechanisms
After his possession of the technodrome, Donatello swore that he would never let another thing infect him like that. But the invasion attempt was months ago, and he wasn’t able to hold onto that oath to himself.
It was during a routine check-in, when Donnie discovered something off with himself. He was checking the different parts of his blood, such as platelet count, etc, and found one reading, regarding his white blood cell count, to be odd. So, he did some digging and tried a few more tests on the down low. He had an excess amount of abnormal white blood cells.
The information was startling to say the least and he didn’t want to alarm Leo with it by asking him what it meant. That was part of the reason he did these tests himself anyway. So, he looked it up himself and confirmed it with more tests. He had cancer. An aggressive form of leukemia, to be more exact.
He sat back in his chair and took in the information. An aggressive form of blood cancer was ravaging through his body. That’s where the dizzy spells and the nosebleeds were coming from. The symptoms he waved off as nothing more than his body telling him to take a break from working was actually cancer.
Against his better judgment, he kept the news to himself.
He did the math after getting his results from the test, his survival rate was 23.4%. He waited long enough for it to spread because he was stupid enough to ignore symptoms like fainting and excessive bloody noses, and now he had a month and a half left to live. In more exact terms, he was given forty-five days to get everything in order since diagnosis.
Donnie knew his siblings would panic the second they got the news, and yet there was nothing anyone could do for him. He couldn’t go to a regular hospital for radiation therapy or anything of the sort, not to mention it was already too late with how he had let it go for so long.
Despite the diagnosis, he could still work and prepare for the worst to come.
As the days ticked without a word being said to his brothers or April, he found himself bruising easily and every cut seemed to bleed to no end. He would wake up covered in blood and sweat from a random nose bleed and excessive sweating. He lost weight and looked like he was shrinking compared to his twin. Everything ached, everything hurt. Some days he had fevers, others painful headaches.
Still, Donnie managed to get his affairs in order. He began working on gifts for his siblings, cleaned and organized his laboratory, and tried to be around his family as much as possible. Some days, he found himself dozing off in Mikey’s room as he drew or humming to himself in Raph’s room as he trained. He gave April a box of forever unfinished projects and still never told her.
Then his battle shell stopped fitting and eventually his purple hoodie was too large to be considered oversized, even to his tastes. He started leaning on his tech bō whenever he stood because his legs and head would always scream in protest of it.
Donnie had just finished the second of his gifts to his siblings. It was for Mikey, his creative, adoring, little brother. He made him a custom street art kit in the form of a high tech duffel bag. It would sort new paint cans and dispense needed colors. It also had spots to hang painters masks and other needed equipment. Donnie added his tag to the corner of the bag for his ‘genius built tech’ and embroidered an added message for his little brother. He put the bag in a box labeled “for my family,” next to the gift he had already made for April.
Glancing at the calendar, it seemed he had a month left before the inevitable. It seemed too soon. As they say, “those who burn the brightest, often burn the fastest.” He hoped that saying was right, and that he was able to make something of the short sixteen years he was given. By now he was far too exhausted to even cry at the grim reality he was facing.
He got up, leaving the box hidden in the corner of the lab to be found after his demise. He had thirty-one days to finish Leo and Raph’s gifts. He kept his space clean and removed the locking mechanism from his door in case the illness took him sooner than calculated. He leaned against his bō staff and used it to hobble from his room.
Donnie found a spot to settle down in the corner of Leo’s room as his brother played a strategist video game on his laptop.
Leo was mostly focused on the game, muttering a quick greeting as Donatello staggered in with not much more. He tapped away at his game, the tides of which began to turn in his favor.
Donnie closed his eyes and leaned into his position up against Leo’s wall. He stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the keyboard tapping and the mouse clicking. A wave of calm washed over him, and for a moment he felt as though he might fall asleep.
“Hey, Don,” Leo’s voice suddenly cut into his calming sounds. He opened his eyes and blinked. His brother had turned around in his chair to look at him.
“Hey, Leo,” he croaked back, a flimsy smile crossing his features.
“You okay, Donnie? You don’t look so good,” Leo asked, concerned, getting up from his chair and sitting down beside Donnie.
There was about an inch of space between them, before Donnie leaned into him at least. He buried his face into the space between Leo’s jaw and his shoulder, letting go of an exhausted sigh.
Leo wrapped an arm around him and grimaced. “You feel really boney, man, are you sure you’re eating right?”
“I’m eating fine,” Donnie hummed.
Leo waited a moment, rubbing Donnie’s arm with the one that was around his shoulders. His arm was thin, deprived of all the muscle it once had before the illness struck.
Donnie made an undignified, squeaking noise as another brush of shivers hit him.
Leo hugged him through the tremors. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”
He was silent, clinging onto his twin, who was only younger than him by two minutes.
“Raph said it might be true, but I didn’t want to believe it. He told me you fainted trying to stand up after hanging out in his room.”
“I did the test fourteen days ago, but I was too scared to say it to anyone. That would make it too real,” Donnie whispered into the crook of Leo’s neck.
“How long?”
“A month by my calculations.”
A harsh sob cut out of Leo’s throat and he held onto Donnie harder until Donnie swore he was going to be bruised from the grip, but he didn’t care. That was one bruise he would be happy to hold.
Donnie was still too exhausted to cry.
“Are you—“ Leo had to pause to sniff away his tears, “—are you going to tell the others?”
He nodded. “They should know.”
He didn’t want anything official. At first, he didn’t want to tell them at all, but he knew he would have to. So, he waited until someone found out. He wasn’t surprised when it was Leo, his medically inclined brother, who found him out first. But as he mentioned, he didn’t want to have this big official sit-down.
They had it anyway, as official as Donnie allowed. With his family all gathered in the projector room when he limped in with most of his weight being supported by his tech bō. His tech bō was basically a glorified walking stick now. He was even forced to deactivate it so he didn’t activate anything from leaning on it.
It was his siblings, blood and not. Just Raph, Mikey, Leo, and April, all gathered in the room waiting for something Donnie had to tell them. They all looked somewhat excited, except Leo who still seemed on the verge of tears.
Dad wasn’t there. He was already gone thanks to the invasion. It was hard to believe Splinter managed to make it all the way through the invasion, only to die a day later because of his injuries. At least Donnie would see him again in a month.
Everyone, except for Leo, who already knew the cause for the meeting, looked up at him, expectant of great news. Donnie prepared himself to disappoint.
“So,” Mikey chirped, “what did you need to tell us?”
Donnie still looked dead on his feet, gripping his tech bō for dear life knowing it was the only thing keeping him from ungracefully meeting the floor. Everything still hurt. He held a grimace on his face, both at the various aches and pains which now plagued him on a day to day basis, and at the news he had to break.
“I need to tell you all something very important,” he began, “and I’m sorry I waited this long to say as such . . .”
Leo looked away. Donnie understood why, he would have to hear the news all over again. It wasn’t fun to hear your brother admit to having cancer the first time, let alone all the times after.
“Donnie?” April now asked concerned.
If Donnie wasn’t so exhausted he would be broken down, crying already, but he didn’t have it in him. “Brothers, sister . . . I—I got sick a, a uh few days ago.”
Raph suddenly caught on very fast, his pleasant smile turning to concern, then to fear. “How sick?”
Donnie’s lip quivered as he tried to say it out loud again.
“It’s cancer.” Leo answered for him, his voice quiet.
Mikey started crying immediately, Raph and April looked too stunned to cry. Leo still looked drained from the moment in his room earlier.
“But-but, there’s still hope right?” Raph stammered, standing up. His thrashing tail neary knocked into Mikey and April.
“If you call a 23.4% chance of survival hope, though I’ve broken down the numbers and even that chance is likely inaccurate by now.”
“What?” All the hope drained from Raph’s eyes.
Mikey sobbed harder.
“It was correct when I found out fourteen days ago,” Donnie clarified.
“You found out two weeks ago and you didn’t tell us?” April exclaimed, standing up too.
“There’s nothing to be done about it either way, terminal is terminal.”
April ran over to him and hugged him. Pain shot down his spine from the impact but he didn’t care. He hugged her back, leaning his weight off his bō staff and onto her. Mikey and Raph soon followed until he didn’t need to hold himself up at all.
Raph scooped them all onto his lap and they spent the rest of the night watching movies. Donnie tried to hold onto every second that went by with them all, even as his mind raced with all there was still left for him to do and with how tired he felt, it would be easy to fall asleep right where he sat.
The family festivities didn’t last forever. Donnie was back in his lab, alone by the following week. His siblings were trying to avoid how sickly he looked so they could remain in their little ‘my brother’s not dying’ bubble.
Donnie finished Leo’s gift that day. He had nothing else to focus on to ignore the pain eating away at his rapidly deteriorating body, so he started Raph’s too.
Early that day he’d only seen Mikey briefly. He told Donnie that he was making him something and would show it to him that night. Donnie smiled and told him he couldn’t wait to see it.
Raph’s project was harder to work on than he thought, and was scrapped and restarted more than he would like to admit. He couldn’t seem to get it right, and the constant haze lingering in the back of his mind wasn’t helping. He documented the process of all his gifts on his computer, of which he turned the passcode feature off on for the event of his death. Raph’s files dragged on much longer than the others, and each one seemed to be more of a clouded rant about what he should make.
He ended the last log and moved it into the ‘Raph’s last gift’ folder. Donnie felt tired and worn through. He continued to struggle with drawing up a good design for Raph late into the afternoon.
His eyes started to droop and he must not have realized how tired he was. He felt like he was sleeping all day and despite it was still tired. He could hardly keep track of the short periods of time he could force himself to stay awake, and those short bits were agonizing as it was.
He couldn’t stay awake this time. He closed his eyes and gave in, slumping over his workstation on top of all the barely comprehensible scribbled drawings for Raph’s gift. The last thing he thought about before his head completely clouded, was that he hoped he would wake back up before Mikey came in with his surprise.
He didn’t get to see Mikey’s surprise. He had passed still thinking he still had three weeks left. He never told his stepfather, he never told his friends. He had certainly planned to after finishing the gifts, but in the end, he didn’t get to finish his last gift.
I am currently going through and updating posts for all the AUs currently in the works. So, bear with me through the process, but this should be the complete masterpost for the Dead Donatello AU that @korvidq and I are working on.
WARNINGS: This AU contains character death, terminal illness, grief and mourning, and horrible coping mechanisms
About: Donnie gets sick and dies at the age of 16 of a terminal illness. In the aftermath of his death, it tears the family apart, so much so that they move in with their step-father Draxum and leave the lair. Everyone is suffering the loss. Mikey then starts to have dreams containing his dead brother's ghost. He can't even tell if it's real.
Okay, so originally I was never going to post these because I didn't feel like I needed to (and I don't think the art is the best), but I thought why not do it anyway.
So, here are two ref sheets for the Scar AU (it's really a Scarred Don + Blind Leo AU but just saying Scar AU is easier). These sheets got all my notes about struggling with how to draw. I also took pics of my own body doing some of the poses because I was struggling so if it looks weird idk my body just does that.
Based off a story I posted to ao3 with the help of SalemWoods or @korvidq, however, all art is my own :>
